Sweet Surrender
by arielmoondance
Summary: Bridgefic between Unfinished Business and Eye of Jupiter. Kara allows herseld to stay in the moment.


**Title: Sweet Surrender  
Author: Arielmoondance  
Rating: NC-17 (Adult only)  
Character/Pairing: Kara & Lee  
Genre: Romance, smut  
Summary: Bridgefic between Unfinished Business and The Eye of Jupiter. Kara allows herself to be in the moment.  
Spoilers: Season 3  
Word Count:  
Disclaimer: I am borrowing these wonderful characters. No copywrite infrigement intended.  
Credits: The title is inspired by Sarah McLaughlin's "Sweet Surrender" and the lyrics are the Goo Goo Dolls "Without You Here" used without permission but for no monetary gain.  
Authors note: This is my second fic and my first attempt at smut. It took forever to write because I read many fics that are so good and I didnt feel this was terribly origonal. However I am fairly happy with it and decided to let it loose into the world. Comments always welcome.**

_**And your love's a gathered storm, I chased across the sky, **_

_**A moment in your arms, became the reason why**_

Kara Thrace knows how to love and she knows how to hate. Unfortunately, most of the time, these feelings are tangled up together inside her heart. She has always confused the two, her mother teaching that lesson early on. She suffered physical and mental abuse from the one person that should have loved her unconditionally.

She knows different levels of love, comfortable love like she had with Zack and safe love like she feels for Sam. But there is another kind of love; one that scares her to death and it's the love she has for Lee Adama. It's balls to the wall, scary-as-hell-kind of love and she has been sabotaging her own heart to keep it from ever being realized. Obstacles like her engagement to Zack and then, after his death, with her transfer to Galactica under the old man's command._ I loved your dead brother and now I work for you the father you hate!_

Just when her life was beginning to be bearable again, it seems, the gods saw fit that they should be together at the end of the world. How else did he come to be on Galactica and not his own doomed battlestar at the time the cylons attacked? How was it she was in the brig and not out in an ill-fated viper on that same day?

At least being her direct superior officer kept him off limits while they lived in such close quarters but it still proved to be challenging. For months they danced around each other and in and out of their personal space. Sleeping with vice president Gaius Baltar should have been further undeniable proof that she was a screw up, but Lee just couldn't stay mad at her for very long.

So they danced some more until she placed the Caprican pyramid player turned resistance fighter Samuel Anders into the mix. Surely being hung up on a dead guy could keep Lee from getting too close, it had worked with Zack...

But it seems they were destined to keep flowing back together like an ocean tide influenced by an orbiting moon. The night on New Caprica when they made love under the stars was like a dream. Her admission of love to Lee was real, but being this happy felt too much like free fall, on stims. After waking up in the arms of the man she loved most in the world, she was sick with fear and she knew she had to end it once and for all. Running to Sam, she placed what she thought would be a final, permanent barrier between them. She betrayed her own heart that day, as well as Lee's, but it had to be done. Driving a knife into Lee's heart, she gazed upon his face as it bled. _Can't you see? I have frakked it up for good this time!_

Oh the gods have a sick sense of humor because now they are back on Galactica and he is her CAG once again.They havent talked but he's there all the time and once again she needs to remind herself and him of all the reasons he should not love her. She needs the physical pain to match the pain inside, to remind herself that love is pain. Maybe they can physically beat the love from their hearts and then get on with their lives.

She goads him with the every insult she knows. _Frakking hit me, Lee!  
_  
Maybe she can be the wife Sam wants her to be and Lee and Dee can have that bright shiny future with the porch swing.

She knows how to hate and since returning to the fleet after the exodus, she has been filled with it. Anger has raged inside her and it has led her here, to this boxing ring, with this man, the man she loves.

"Come on, you afraid to hit me? Or maybe you can't" _Bring it on!_

Finally he takes the bait, let's go of his control, and lays into her. _Finally_! _Make this go away!_

What she does not realize until it is too late, is that with each blow from his fists, the anger, pain, fear, self-loathing are being chipped away and all the barriers are being torn down until she is left with the raw truth. A truth she has buried deep inside her heart for a long time. She has loved Lee Adama all along, but now she knows that it's bigger than both of them.

And so, bruised and bloodied, exhausted and relieved, she is in his arms.

This incredible painfully twisted past has transformed them and strengthened the bond between them in a profound way. If they can still feel this much anger, the love in their hearts must be huge. This is something she knows all too well for in her heart they co-exist. The past has been a test and a testament of their love and it will endure anything she can put in its path. Maybe it's time she gave up resisting it.

"I missed you," she whispers.

"I missed you too," he croaks, "I missed you too."

She melts into his sweaty embrace and smiles into his shoulder. _For a moment._

_**And you're still the only light that fills the emptiness  
The only one I need, until my dying breath**_

Standing in the memorial hall with the photo in her hand she tries not too see all the faces looking back at her. Today another face is added to the wall but she has never needed pictures to remember all the pilots that have died. She can name them all, going back to Zack, and now Kat will take her place in her crowded conscience. The bodies and the guilt are piling up and she is getting weary of carrying it all.

She wants to let go of the grief when she realizes that he is standing behind her. Desperately trying to swallow back the emotions, she takes a long deep breath before turning to face him. She is not sure what she is going to find on his face and it takes all her remaining strength to meet his eyes.

Lee's expression is not anything close to what she was expecting. It is that of concern and something else she cant quite read but it compels her to move toward him, into his embrace. His powerful arms surround her and once again the floodgates threaten to burst. He more than anyone, knows the animosity between herself and Kat. But more than anyone he also knows how loosing a pilot affects her.

Kat is dead and it should have been her. Good people have died and the screwed-up sinner that is Kara Thrace lives another day. It could easily have been him they keep surviving and his arms are once again around her. Nothing will ever be the same again, she can not undue what she has done but it doesn't seem to matter right now because he is holding her like he means to never let her go. She manages a small tortured smile against his chest even as the hot tears streak down her face. _Just for a moment_.

_**And I would give you everything,**_

**_Just to feel your open arms  
And I'm not sure I believe, anything I feel  
_**_  
_

Kara heads out for her morning run and almost collides with Lee coming out of the head. By coincidence, he's dressed to run too. He shrugs, she nods, and then they fall into a rhythm together as they weave through the mostly empty corridors. Moving in silence, she enjoys the measured sounds of just their shoes and their breathing. They are side by side when she starts to sprint for the homestretch and he matches her effort. For once she does not try to out do him, she just pushes herself enough to feel the burning in her thighs and lungs. When they stop, back at the head, she puts her hands on her knees and looks up at him. There is a question in his eyes that has nothing to do with the workout.

"I'm ok," she says.

"I know" he replies.

He lets his hand rest on her back briefly before he leaves and when he is out of sight she allows her self to grin. _For a moment._

_**But now, now that you're near  
There's nothing more without you  
Without you here**_

Kara lies on her back in her rack after flying CAP, with her eyes closed, listening to the stillness of the officer's quarters when the hatch opens and closes and foot falls stop beside her. She can hear him breathing and she smiles before she opens her eyes. Lee is looking down at her, drinking her in, and the hint of a smile plays on his lips. She reaches her hand out to him at the same moment that his moves toward her.

He quickly surveys the room before he allows her to pull him into the bunk with her. He closes the curtain as she moves to give him some room in the cramped space. Turningher back to him, she brings his arm across her body at her waist and he spoons his body behind hers. His body is warm and his breath is hot on her neck. She smiles again and pushes back into him so that she can feel him against her from head to foot.

They stay like that, the only movement the rising and falling of their chests, for a long time and she would love to fall asleep like this but she is too aware of him. Her skin tingles in all the places where their bodies are touching. The contact reveals something hard, growing, and pressing against her butt. She snuggles into him even more and this causes him to hiss into her ear "Kara". She closes her eyes and bites her lip.

It would be so easy to let this happen. His hand has drifted to her hip and his lips trace the edges of her ear. She lets a sigh escape from deep within her and he reacts by pressing his fingers deeper into her exposed flesh. Her hand reaches back to grasp his thigh and she delights in how the taunt muscles feel underneath his pants. His hand roams under her shirt and then under her bra to her breast. "MMMMM" she purrs, wiggling against his arousal. His teeth bite into her neck and she can hardly stand how turned on she is.

Normally she would seek to control the situation right about now but this time she holds back. She needs for this to be his move. Like the games they play, she made her move in the boxing ring. As if he knows what she is thinking, he unbuttons her pants and slides his hand between her legs causing her breath to hiss from her. He groans when his fingers discover the moist wet heat there. His other hand manages to slide under her, to her breast, pulling her even closer to him.

She hooks her leg back behind his, giving him more access as he skillfully guides her to the edge of ecstasy. Her breath becomes deeper and more even and he whispers in her ear, "Yes, that's it." And that is all it takes to slide past the point of no return, her body jerking. He doesn't stop moving his fingers but he changes his rhythm to a longer slower motion -maintaining the waves- dragging it out almost unbearably.

Before long she is on the edge again and his name escapes her lips. "Come again, Kara. I want you to come again." Nodding her head against him she can barely breathe and she knows this one is going to be huge because she can't tell where the last one really ended. Like an eternal fall from a cliff. This time he slides two fingers inside when the orgasm rolls over her and she braces and against him locks down on his fingers, holding her breathe until she can't any longer.

As she lies gasping in his arms he brings his wet fingers to her mouth but he can hardly stand it when she sucks his fingers so he devours her mouth to steal the sweet taste from her.

When he pulls back to catch his breath he says, "gods" and nuzzles her neck. She smiles again as an aftershock courses through her. It is so tempting to forget the past and not to worry about the future. She feels more alive than she has in a very long time and she is grateful. The guilt will be there later, for so many reasons, but she shuts that out. _For the moment._ She smiles into the pillow drifts into sleep.

_**And I'm trying to believe  
In things that I don't know  
The turning of the world  
The color of your soul**_

The stupid grin is still plastered to her face at 0700 when she sits waiting for the pilot briefing. She's there before anyone else so she starts doodling on a piece of paper. A few seconds later she becomes aware that she is humming. _This is insane_, she thinks. Lee comes in past her and she swears that he blushes when he sees her face.

"Sleep well captain?" He asks when he gets behind the podium, fighting a matching stupid grin.

"Why yes, major." She teases. _Gods this is fun_.

"That's good because you have the first donut run." He smirks as Hotdog, Helo, and Narcho filter into the room and take their seats.

"Oh thank you sir!" She chimes back at him. Helo is staring at her so she says to her friend in her mock annoyed voice "What?"

"Nothing, I mean, Starbuck, are you blushing?" He stammers.

"Frak no but if I had your bed head I would be." She replies without missing a beat.

Racetrack comes in the room and asks "Hey, are they going to put algae in _all_ the food?"

"I heard that eating too much algae turns your pee green!" Hotdog responds causing the other pilots to laugh.

Apollo jumps in to settle them down and then he does his CAG thing about the mission. A group of civilians and knuckle draggers will be harvesting the algae and he will be going down to the planet with a marine detachment to oversee the operation. The CAP schedule will be posted and there will be additional solo raptor runs that he will be assigning.

"Keep your eyes on DRADIS people, we don't want any surprises while we have civilians on the surface. Skids up in four hours. Dismissed."

**_That love could kill the pain, The truth is never vain  
It turns strangers into lovers, And enemies to brothers  
Just say you understand, I never had this planned  
_**_  
_

She has some time to kill so she decides that now is a good time to do some repairs on the hangar deck.

She fiddles with the hydraulic lines on her viper and sure enough she's still grinning. She loves mechanics because she can muck through things in her head while her hands are busy fixing things. If only she could put her life back together so easily. She can't remember the last time she was this happy and she dreads that it has to end. _It will_. She will frak it up, she always does. For now though, she hums.

She sighs when the right size hose coupling is not out on the tool cart and she shrugs off to find one herself. The parts room is empty so she roots around in the various bins making quite a racket. The wrenches are particularly loud. She likes this tune, it's pure Kara.

Someone else enters and she launches into "Chief, where can I find…?" Before she sees that it is Lee, here to make sense of her chaos. When she was very little her father had a metronome on the piano. It kept perfect time and no matter what she did to the keys, it never faltered. Lee Adama is her metronome.

"Hey"

"Hey"

"Having fun?"

"Yup."

"Um, you have grease on your…" He's staring at a point above her lip. She tries to wipe it off but only smears it worse.

"Here…" He slowly moistens his thumb and carefully dabs at the grease. She watches the intensity he is putting into this task and it makes her knees feel weak. His eyes find hers and she is lost in them. _Frak._

He steps back and breaks the spell. "I haven't seen Sam around…" _Bigger frak_.

She clears her throat and looks down at her hands. "He's…We're not…" She rolls her eyes and tries to make light. "Big surprise."

"I am sorry, Kara."

She wishes he had said, "I told you so" so she could deck him. That would be easier. She would prefer to fall back into their old familiar pattern- they should be hurting each other about now. A wisecrack could easily deflect the topic away from the demons in her closet but she's getting tired. Damn it if he doesn't sound sincere and that same look is there on his face again. The one she saw in the memorial hall. She still can't identify it but it makes her do things she probably shouldn't do. She is absolutely positive she doesn't want to do what she is about to do. _Frak_.

She takes a very long deep breath and slowly begins to tell him about her confinement in Leoben's personal detention cell on New Caprica. Soon the words and the memories are spilling out of her. She finds herself telling him how patient and persistent he was despite her repeated resistance. She confides that she felt the gods were punishing her for her sins, just as Leoben believed that his God would help him win her heart. Lee stays very still, leaning back against the table with his arms across his body.

"When I went back for Kacey, he had her with him and I knew what I had to do. I looked him in the eye and I told him that I loved him. I told him what he wanted to hear and I kissed him the way he said I would. Then I took the knife and I stabbed him in the gut. I watched his face as I twisted the blade…. and I saw your face, Lee, the day I got married."

She closes her eyes. "So maybe, you should consider yourself lucky that I only broke your heart."

"Kara…" he whispers, closing the distance between them. He seems lost for words so instead he lets his eyes do the talking for him. His hand cups her jaw and his thumb wipes the accumulating moisture from the corner of her eye. He gazes at her lips and she self-consciously sucks the top one between her teeth, focusing on his throat where it moves when he swallows. His other arm draws her body to his and her hands go to his bare bi-ceps. She marvels at how perfectly the hard muscles fit into her palms and how soft the skin around them is as she lets her arms hang from them.

He's still staring at her face, going from her eyes to her lips for what feels like forever. If he doesn't kiss her soon, and hard, she is going to loose it but he's waiting. Finally she raises her eyes to his and lets him see what is in her heart. His eyes take her breath away. Very gently he kisses her forehead, her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, her eyelids. His lips move to her ear and she lets a sigh escape her as she rolls her head to give him access to her throat.

"Lee, I am so…" she starts to apologize but he cuts her off.

"Don't." he says and his mouth is on hers and he is swallowing the words before she can finish. He takes a hold of the back of her hair, tilting her head back forcefully so he can invade her mouth with his tongue. He maneuvers her against the wall so he can press up against her with the length of his body. His hunger is matched by hers, their mouths are insatiable. She sucks his tongue into her mouth and then lets it go with a slurping noise that makes him groan. He pulls back when they run out of air and she lets a laugh escape as she rubs her forehead against his. All of her emotions seem to be pouring out her, leaving her helpless to stop what is happening.

"Gods, I want you," he whispers.

"Please, Lee." She begs because she is going to go insane if he doesn't take her, right here and now. He reaches behind her and with a barely audible grunt he lifts her off the ground. Her legs instinctively/ instantly warp around his hips as his groin pushes into hers. She nudges along his jaw until her lips find his ear, tracing and exploring it with her tongue and she gently blowing on it. He shivers and lets her slide down his body so he can rid them of their clothes. He reaches back and removes his tanks with one fluid motion as she undoes her pants. When her sports bra is the last remaining article between them he rips it off and over her head, trapping her arms above her head before he pushes her back into the wall. They come together, skin against skin and she almost laughs again as two thoughts pop into her head.

One is that neither one is going to last very at this intensity and two that she is unwilling and unable to stop this from happening. Deep down she knows this is wrong, not so much for her- but for him, for who is he is and what he stands for. But somewhere even deeper inside her is the new knowledge that he is part of her. He is vital to her; everything seems to always come back to him. Nothing can come between then forever, they will always be drawn together by some force more powerful than the barriers they have thrown in the way.

Looking back she now knows that the spark had been there all along and everything that has happened between them since they met has just been variations of intensity of the fire. The flame has withstood every trial and is brighter than ever before. So even though this thing happening now is so very wrong, she knows that it is, really, the only right thing in the world. Starbuck and Apollo are meant to be together and are meant to be one. Their hearts and their bodies come together now as one, in a blinding fury of heat and need and pain and love and hate that consumes them until it ultimately explodes.

When it's over, they cling to each other as they struggle to breathe and stand on weakened limbs. There are no words for this moment, only gasping for air but when she looks at him again he is smiling at her. Amidst the chaos that is Kara Thrace, there is a constant, Lee Adama.

She smiles back at him. _For a moment._

_**My head lies to my heart, And my heart it still believes  
It seems the ones who love us are the ones we deceive  
But you're changing everything, You're changing everything in me**_

She brings the raptor in fast and low over the ridge and hits the reverse thrusters as the cumbersome machine groans under the strain. In the cockpit it's all about control, the ship is an extension of her body and it yields to her will.

How she loves to fly- if this was her viper she would do a million barrel rolls for how she feels right not. But this is not her viper and being in love is not like controlling 50 tons of metal- its far more treacherous. It's like being blindfolded or worse, letting someone else take the controls.

As she powers down she sees him weaving towards her through the scrub brush. There is a spring in his step and her mouth twitches because it has felt so good to surrender for a while. _I don't have to frak it up, it already is frakked up._

Her life has always been a battle between her heart and her mind and between love and hate. She is capable of deep love, she has felt it, she feels it now, but as long as they are married to other people she is safe. Her love will never be put to the test. Maybe it is enough; Lee and Kara are together at the end of the world, despite everything they have been through. Maybe the gods are satisfied, she can stop resisting, and allow gravity keep them circling each other.

She smiles in anticipation of being in his arms. _Even if it's only__ for a moment._

_**And now, now that you're near  
There's nothing more without you  
Without you here**_

FIN


End file.
